President Donald Trump revealed over the weekend that he is considering a deal that would end his war with Iran and some hawks inside Iran The Republican Party they are expressing alarm.
According to a Sunday REPORT in The New York Timesmany details of the deal to end the war remain murky, with the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium up in the air. US and Iranian officials have also given conflicting messages about the content of the proposed deal, suggesting there is still much work to be done before any deal is finalized.
Regardless, three hawks GOP Senators on Saturday raised major concerns about the deal’s content, warning against accepting any deal that would leave Iran in a stronger position than before Trump launched a war against it in late February.
“If it is perceived in the region that an agreement with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq”, has written Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who lobbied Trump to attack Iran repeatedly before the war began. “A deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control (the Strait of Hormuz) in the future will decide Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq on steroids.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another old Iranian hawk, said he was “deeply troubled” by what he was hearing about the deal and expressed particular concern about US relief for Iran. sanctions while still maintaining the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz.
“If the result of all this is that an Iranian regime — still run by Islamists chanting ‘death to America’ — is now receiving billions of dollars,” Cruz wrote, “being able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weaponsand having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a catastrophic mistake.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was even more blunt in his condemnation of the reported deal.
“The rumored 60-day truce — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster,” Wicker said. has written. “Everything achieved by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!”
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to the President Barack Obamachallenged Wicker’s claims that Trump’s war had achieved anything of value.
“Nothing came of Operation Epic Fury,” Rhodes has written“except for the deployment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.”
Rhodes’ criticism was echoed by Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has written that “everything achieved by Operation Epic Fury is now in vain”.
Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, accused Iran hawks of being deluded into thinking further bombing would force Iran to capitulate.
“DC’s Iran hawks took two wars, nearly every imaginable sanction, an embargo, threw a wrench into the global economy,” Vaez has written“and they will continue to pretend that just a little more pressure and a touch more bombing will magically yield concessions they still won’t be happy with.”
